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Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

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Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#161

Post by biztos »

phpisthebest wrote: post #130
blub wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PIPs are a tool for managing out employees that don’t perform well or don’t yield to often abusive company demands like e.g. overtime or pissed of somebody in management or connected to management.

Depends on the company but they are commonly used to ensure managers are not just firing someone that they are "pissed off" at, people are cynical about them but they are designed to ensure managers have to document the poor performance, and have notified the employee they are under performing... I have seen companies that lack this process and witnessed employees getting very positive feedback from managers even in…

Interesting factoid from Europe: at least in Germany, you are effectively unhirable if you are in a PiP. You actually have to warrant that you are not, before any company of any size will consider hiring you, and of course lying about that would be a firing offense.

I get the logic, but as an American I was surprised… I was never PiPed but I too would have assumed it was better than the alternative. Not always!

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#162

Post by pasquinelli »

phpisthebest wrote: post #141
bbbobbb wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry what extra work? you know the company is able to hire more people right?

You know companies have budgets right? you can not just "hire more people" and remain profitable, no profit no company. Companies are not charities created to employ people. So sure if only 1 person is off on leave most likely another person could be hired But 5 years of protected leave..... What percentage of the work force is going to be out on that? Also since it is very hard to terminate someone in the EU, what h…

if the companies are unhappy with those terms then they're free to go elsewhere. under those terms companies hire people, so your assessment that such terms must break companies is clearly wrong.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#163

Post by phpisthebest »

maxwell wrote: post #149
phpisthebest wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the culture differences between the US and EU for alot of people (though this is changing in the US) Personally I value my "work". That is not to say I value my efforts for my employer which makes this hard to explain. I do not find value is laying around, vacationing, sports, or any other traditional "leisure" activity. I like to work So even when I am not "working" for pay for my employer, I am still…

https://www.hellahealth.com/blog/wellness/regrets-old-age

>>Most of their regrets revolved around their family and how they wish relationships, usually either with their children or between their children

I am willing to bet, that if you met many of these people in the 40's and 50;'s (where I am today) they would have the same statements.

I too sometimes regret I am not closer with family, or have more "friends" but at the same time I do not have the desire to change that reality at all...

It is complex psychological problem for me I have always since my teens been a "loner", I do not have the mental stamina to be around people for long periods of time. Once of the reasons I would attracted to computer programming, even when working in a "team" you work alone for large periods of time.

To be clear I am not really a introvert or rather I am both an introvert and an extrovert when the situation requires it, I can carry a conversion, I can be "the life the room" but I find it mentally draining and exhausting to the point where if I am at a conference for example, I need a few days completely alone after to decompress.

So sure I sometimes regret that was not born with the mental gift of being able form these close continual bonds with people... but at the same time I dont have the desire to change that element of myself... if that makes any sense at all.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#164

Post by sveme »

biztos wrote: post #161
phpisthebest wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the company but they are commonly used to ensure managers are not just firing someone that they are "pissed off" at, people are cynical about them but they are designed to ensure managers have to document the poor performance, and have notified the employee they are under performing... I have seen companies that lack this process and witnessed employees getting very positive feedback from managers even in…

Interesting factoid from Europe: at least in Germany, you are effectively unhirable if you are in a PiP. You actually have to warrant that you are not, before any company of any size will consider hiring you, and of course lying about that would be a firing offense. I get the logic, but as an American I was surprised… I was never PiPed but I too would have assumed it was better than the alternative. Not always!

I worked for small and large companies, both German and American, never has anyone asked me whether I had been in a PIP. Have never even encountered something like this in Germany.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#165

Post by marvin »

em-bee wrote: post #142
webstrand wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, it sounds like it might be viable to have a kid there. Two parents working full-time in the US struggle when they have a kid, due to the loss of income. Our system worked a lot better when both parents were not expected to work, it's kind of broken now.

which is exactly the point. birthrate is already bad enough as it is. for the moment this is compensated with immigration, but eventually support for parenting may have to increase even further if we want to keep the birthrate up.

Wouldn't it also work to just make everything cheaper for everyone?

Housing has increased so much in cost that I wouldn't be surprised that just having housing back to 1980s price levels would give most families enough breathing room with just unpaid leave.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#167

Post by csydas »

phpisthebest wrote: post #130
blub wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PIPs are a tool for managing out employees that don’t perform well or don’t yield to often abusive company demands like e.g. overtime or pissed of somebody in management or connected to management.

Depends on the company but they are commonly used to ensure managers are not just firing someone that they are "pissed off" at, people are cynical about them but they are designed to ensure managers have to document the poor performance, and have notified the employee they are under performing... I have seen companies that lack this process and witnessed employees getting very positive feedback from managers even in…

I'm actually shocked that so many companies handle performance improvement and coaching so badly.

We implemented a coaching system for our support team about a year ago with the explicit purpose that individual coaching does not directly affect KPI, and that as much coaching can and should be done freely without worry of impacting the support team. The system tracks both the person being coached and their team lead who does the coaching. The coaching is directed to be as instructive as possible, that it's not about punishment, but better ways of handling specific technical situations or adherence to the support policy.

Long term reviews consider not just the person being coached, but also the leader as well, as a high number of coaching options across multiple persons on the same team would suggest an issue with the leadership as the root cause, and more qualitative reviews focus on that element as well. The entire point is to ensure that Performance Improvement Plans don't have to be a thing, and that there is constructive feedback flowing into the system.

Adoption was slow, but with strict adherence to what a coaching instruction must include, we've seen exceptionally high improvement and much calmer conversations when mistakes are made since the support persons realize "this isn't a KPI penalty or a PIP; it's just trying to prevent that." Having the system "open", i.e., the support persons can see every entry they have at any time with a few clicks of a button means no secrets.

It's a lot of documenting, but so far we're seeing a ton of success with it and positive feedback to having this process for constructive criticism, and the focus on also considering "this might be a leadership issue" also helps add some comfort.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#168

Post by phpisthebest »

biztos wrote: post #161
phpisthebest wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the company but they are commonly used to ensure managers are not just firing someone that they are "pissed off" at, people are cynical about them but they are designed to ensure managers have to document the poor performance, and have notified the employee they are under performing... I have seen companies that lack this process and witnessed employees getting very positive feedback from managers even in…

Interesting factoid from Europe: at least in Germany, you are effectively unhirable if you are in a PiP. You actually have to warrant that you are not, before any company of any size will consider hiring you, and of course lying about that would be a firing offense. I get the logic, but as an American I was surprised… I was never PiPed but I too would have assumed it was better than the alternative. Not always!

Interesting, in most states in the US it would be illegal for an employer to reveal to another employer that the employee was on a PiP, I am surprised that is allowed in the EU with all the privacy laws.

The US has lots of anti-black listing laws in almost every state that would make something like that very very illegal

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#169

Post by speedgoose »

phpisthebest wrote: post #141
bbbobbb wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry what extra work? you know the company is able to hire more people right?

You know companies have budgets right? you can not just "hire more people" and remain profitable, no profit no company. Companies are not charities created to employ people. So sure if only 1 person is off on leave most likely another person could be hired But 5 years of protected leave..... What percentage of the work force is going to be out on that? Also since it is very hard to terminate someone in the EU, what h…

What you suggest is not a good government policy in my opinion. A government wants educated people to not be scared to have kids. Leaving a job to be at home a few months and look a for a new job after is extremely stressful and risky, and it can destroy a career.

And long parental leaves are just normal and common in some countries. A medium to large company has no issues dealing with them. It’s part of the management work to deal with that.

Moreover it’s better for a company that their employees don’t leave.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#170

Post by croes »

phpisthebest wrote: post #133
geek_at wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European in general. My wife works for a biotech company in Austria which was recently aquired by an american company and it's so funny to hear about their efforts to adapt to EU law and culture. Most of their training material is still unchanged from their US branch so there are things they list as benefits for all employees like - 3 Weeks paid vacation (we get 5 by law) - Health insurance (you know the drill) - 3 w…

>>(we get 1 year for 80% pay, first 6 months full pay, then 5 years protection against dismissal) That is just crazy.... I would hate to be a chidless person in your country, I can not image the extra amount of work that get places on people that do not have children... As someone that will never have a child I like the fact that the US does not force this kind of parental leave on employers, I know that will be very…

Like paying schools from taxes and never have kids, or paying fire fighters and your house never burns.

It's called society.

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